Maryland State Archives' ''[http://speccol.mdarchives.state.md.us/msa/speccol/catalog/religion/cfm/dsp_county.cfm Guide to Maryland Religious Institutions]'' identifies all churches known to have existed in Worcester County, Maryland. It covers all denominations and includes record descriptions.

Courthouse

History

The 300 or fewer American Indians of Worcester county for the most part avoided fighting and preferred living next to their new British neighbors. They left the county by 1748 eventually ending up in Ontario.[1]

The earliest white settlers of Worcester County were mostly religious dissenters voting with their feet by moving north from Accomack County, Virginia starting in the late 1630s. All social classes from gentlemen to freed indentured servants settled in the area. There is no evidence that transported convicts ever settled in Worcester as in other parts of Maryland and Virginia. The settlers were first attracted by furs, and by slowly expanding small farms in the forests. The ancestors of early Worcester settlers were almost all British.[2]

Before long Virginia authorities were giving land grants in the area over objections from Maryland. Virginia granted 27,800 acres of land to settlers in Worcester from 1645-1666, more than Maryland had granted. After many disputes the Maryland was forced to recognize most of these Virginia grants. Lord Baltimore’s official Maryland proprietary land grants started in Worcester in 1651. Many of his grants were large 3,000 and 4,000 acre grants.[1]

Maryland continued to dispute her border with Pennsylvania as well until the drawing of the Mason-Dixon Line in 1767. Old Worcester County was created about 1669 absorbing now extinct Durham County, and for awhile in 1672 claimed nearly all of the state of Delaware. But by 1685 the British Board of Trade and Foreign Plantations ruled old Worcester County, Maryland dissolved by degree, but the decree was not fully accepted until 1738. However, in 1742 a new Worcester was Country reconstituted out of the eastern part of Somerset County.[3]

In 1684 Maryland’s proprietary land grant system was replaced with a land-for-fee system which attracted large numbers of new settlers. For awhile tobacco was important both as a crop and as currency, but Worcester’s sandy soil could not grow the best quality. By 1700 indentured servitude began to decline and lifetime slavery became more prominent.[4]

By 1662 Quaker and Presbyterian “dissenters” leaving Episcopalian Virginia, together with some of their Episcopalian neighbors, and a few Huguenots were among the first settlers in Worcester County. Baptist ministers, including Francis Makemie, arrived in 1735. In 1766 Methodist circuit riders began to appear including William Barnes and Lorenzo Dow. In 1878 the first Catholic church, and in 1903 the first Jewish synagogue were built.[5]

Neighboring Counties

Resources

Cemeteries

Census

Federal Census reports available 1790-1930 including slave and veterans schedules.

Church

Maryland State Archives' Guide to Maryland Religious Institutions identifies all churches known to have existed in Worcester County, Maryland. It covers all denominations and includes record descriptions.

Court

For information about the Worcester County, Maryland Courthouse and its records, click here.